Wagner Society in NSW Inc.

Newsletter No. 112, July 2008 IN NEW SOUTH WALES INC. President’s Report Dear Members Warwick has agreed to give a talk on 15 March 2009 on his musical “coming to Wagner.” Welcome to our mid-year Newsletter for 2008. (2) April – Glenn Winslade Past Functions (1) March – Warwick Fyfe On Sunday April 20, Glenn Winslade gave a talk on his experiences from a singer’s perspective at , where On Sunday 16 March, Warwick Fyfe delivered an immensely he sang the title role in Tannhäuser in 2002 and 2003. entertaining illustrated talk on his study tour in Europe last November as the 2007 Bayreuth Scholar. Glenn’s talk provided insights into the highs and lows of life for a new singer at Bayreuth, told with much warmth While some Bayreuth scholars return from their travels and humour. These ranged from his audition for Wolfgang and are never heard of again, most provide a short written Wagner and his engagement (Glenn’s agent wouldn’t account to Opera Foundation Australia of their itinerary believe that he’d been given the role); the extraordinary abroad. Warwick’s report of around 90 pages, with many behaviour of his landlord at Bayreuth; the attitude of some photographs, is an open diary of his study tour which tells of the “old hands” in the Festspiele theatre who expected the tale of his travels -the musicians and friends he met, the him to fail and only at the end offered him advice, for places he went, the rehearsals and concerts he attended, example on areas of the theatre where the acoustic was the art galleries he visited, his auditions, his pilgrimages. less perfect; his friendship with John Wegner, who sang Warwick’s talk covered many of the highlights (and with the role of Biteroff; the dangers created by Philippe Arlaud’s some unfortunate experiences with food, the low lights) alluring butcher’s grass meadow set in Act 1; the way the of his travels, with his wife Ruth Frances in charge of the sets changed the acoustic for the singers; the difficulty of overheads and photographs, and was the best “thank keeping one’s voice warm during the hour-long intervals so you” a Scholar has ever given the Society. beloved of the beer and wurst brigade; and much more. We’ve posted Warwick’s report on our website and the PRESIDENT’S REPORT continued p.3 l Editor has extracted a “teaser” printed below to entice you to read his report, and although there may still be an annoying problem with words with umlauts (apparently NEWSLETTER HIGHLIGHTS I have the “wrong character set”) it’s well worth downloading and reading. At over 250Mb with photos, it - Another Chapter P6 proved something of a monster, and in keeping with our in the Saga new “small footprint” age, only the text is online. Walking in Warwick’s footsteps through each room of a gallery Bill Viola’s Tristan Project - Katie French P7 you’ve visited and seeing the works through his eyes is one of its many delights. Wagner and Friends - Barbara Brady P8 President’s Report - 2008 AGM P10

PATRON: Sir Charles Mackerras “Young Set to Become Keeper of the P12 Ring in Hamburg” HONORARY LIFE MEMBERS: Prof Michael Ewans Mr Richard King It Ain’t Over Until The Iguana Sings P14 Mr Horst Hoffman Application For Tickets to the P15 Mr Joseph Ferfoglia Bayreuth Festival 2009 Mrs Barbara NcNulty OBE

Registered Office: 75 Birtley Towers, 8 Birtley Place, Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011 Print Post Approved PP242114/00002 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. For Your Diary

2008 see below for a number of performances in other states. Sunday, July 20 Simone Young concert featuring Englebert Humperdinck’s four- Utzon Room, hand piano arrangement of ’s Parsifal. With Sydney Opera House narration in German and English, twelve short movements are brought to life by passages of text from the opera. Meetings Dates & Coming Events

DATE EVENTS - 2008 TIME & LOCATION

July 20 Peter Bassett to talk on ‘Lortzing’s 1840 Singspiel, Hans Sachs, 2pm Goethe Institut as inspiration for Wagner’s Die Meistersinger’

August No Meeting 2pm Goethe Institut

September 14 Dr Robert Gibson 2pm Paddington Uniting Church

September 28 Chris Broderick, the new President of the New Zealand Wagner 2pm Goethe Institut Society will talk on “Wagner and the Visual Arts”

October 19 Goetz Richter (A/Prof. Strings- Chair, String Unit, Sydney 2pm Goethe Institut Conservatorium) will talk on Nietzsche and Wagner

November 16 Visit to the Opera Centre, Elizabeth Street, Opera Centre, Elizabeth St hosted by Sharna Flowers TBC

November 30 Early Christmas Party 2pm Goethe Institut

Goethe-Institut address 90 Ocean Street Woollahra (corner of Jersey Road) Paddington Unit Church address 395 Oxford Street, Paddington (parking behind in Gordon Street)

Committee 2008 - 2009 President and Membership Secretary Roger Cruickshank 9357 7631 Vice President Julian Block 9337 6978 Treasurer Michael Moore 9363 2281 Secretary Alan Whelan 9318 1212 Members Dennis Mather 9560 1860 Gabrielle Bremner-Moore 9363 2281 Julie Carroll Newsletter Editor Terence Watson 9517 2786 Public Officer Alisdair Beck 9358 3922

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I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the firm of Walter President’s Report continued Turnbull, its Executive Director Mr Mark Driessen, and particularly Mr Christopher Ritchie, for their generosity He also spoke about the modern tendency for and patience in successfully guiding us through this performances of Wagner and Richard Strauss to be very audit experience, and for their considerable work on our loud, and supported the view that Tannhäuser is almost behalf. I’d also like to again acknowledge our thanks to unsingable, with such hurdles as the string of ten top As Ms Julie Carroll, who approached Walter Turnbull on our in Act 2. This was a glimpse into a world often hidden behalf and secured their services pro bono. from its devotees. Meeting entrance fees raised to $15 Glenn also spoke of the on-stage accident in which he The motion to increase the attendance fee at our had been involved, and how it had led to his untimely meetings was amended (from $12) and passed. From retirement. An idea of what we have lost is gained our next meeting on July 20, the entrance fee will be from a review of Opera Australia’s 2002 production of $15 for members. Members at the AGM also directed Lohengrin in Melbourne, which appeared in The Age on the committee to consider increase annual membership 29 April that year. John Slavin, whose reviews are not fees, and a motion will be put to the 2009 AGM with a renowned for their generosity of spirit, wrote “Winslade proposal. grows in confidence as the opera proceeds. By the crucial bedroom scene of act two when Elsa breaks the Bayreuth ticket application handling unchanged contract and betrays him, he is magnificent. He is that The motion to change the way we handle members’ rare thing, a genuine heldentenor who can soar above applications for Bayreuth Tickets was lost. The proposal the stunning volume that conductor Gabor Otvos draws was that priority be given to applicants in one year who from Orchestra Australia. Winslade tends to shout the had applied unsuccessfully in the previous year(s), in opening phrase of each monologue in order to stamp effect creating a “waiting list” which would ensure that his authority on it, but his singing of the crucial recitative provided you applied every year you were guaranteed a “In Fernem Land”, which reveals his identity, is lyrical and ticket, although because of the ballot you had no control memorable.” over the year in which you would get tickets. This would (3) May - AGM have aligned our process with the public allocation system used in Bayreuth, and ensured that members who had On Sunday May 18, we held our 2008 AGM at the never been would eventually get tickets. Paddington Uniting Church. I was somewhat unsettled by the overwhelming defeat Audited accounts of this proposal. I’ve been to Bayreuth three times – The formal part of the meeting included the presentation twice with tickets obtained through the Society – and of our audited accounts for the 2007 calendar year, which the memories of those visits are still vividly with me. I’m were adopted by the meeting. These have been lodged concerned that we may create a two-tiered Society - those with the regulator, and a copy has been posted on our who have not been to Bayreuth, and those who have. website for members to read. Because of the need to While there are other avenues for obtaining tickets, such publish the accounts in full, it’s not possible to include as joining the Friends of Bayreuth, or applying annually them in this Newsletter, and I’d urge you to have a look through the public ticket allocations (which I understand at them on the website. If you can’t access the web, takes around 10 years), members of the Society who please phone me or another member of the committee have never been to Bayreuth should not feel that the and we’ll print out a copy and post it to you. ticket allocation system disadvantages them. After our applications for Bayreuth 2009 close, I will submit a The auditors have made two qualifications. First, they questionnaire to the committee and, with its approval, have noted that “it is not practicable for the Society to we will survey members on their attitudes to a range of maintain an effective system of internal control over cash options. If there is a consensus on changing the process, receipts until initial entry into the accounting records.” we’ll put motions to the AGM in 2009, which if passed This is a qualification which often appears in the will affect the application process for Bayreuth 2010 audited accounts of societies such as ours, where cash onwards. isn’t formally received into an electronic recording and receipting system, such as a till. The committee believes Welcome Julie Carroll to the Committee that the risk of theft is sufficiently mitigated by the use of Your 2007 committee was re-elected for 2008, with the a register where those attending record their names, and addition of Ms Julie Carroll, and I’d like to welcome her the balancing of this register against the cash receipts. onto the committee. The second qualification is that, because they did not Concert audit the accounts for the 2006 calendar year, the auditors are “unable to determine whether the balances The highlight of the AGM is always the recital by voice as at 30 June 2006 have been fairly stated”. This is a one- students from the Conservatorium of Music accompanied off qualification which will not be repeated when they by Sharolyn Kimmorley, and this year’s recital was just audit our 2008 accounts. superb. The Paddington Uniting Church has a much bigger acoustic than the recital room at the Goethe- l Page 3 Wagner Society in NSW Inc.

Wagner programme series on 2MBS-FM 102.5 continued President’s Report On Tuesday 1 July, 2MBS broadcast the first of a series of 12 programmes compiled by Barbara Brady entitled Institut, and from the first (and wonderfully appropriate) “Wagner and Friends”. They will go to air on the first notes of “Dich, teure Halle, grüss ich wieder” through and third Tuesday of every month at 2.30 - 4.00 pm. Each comedy and tragedy to some beautifully phrased lieder programme will share selections from Richard Wagner’s we were treated to a range of music from a very talented music (mainly opera, with some symphonic and choral quintet of performers - Catherine Bouchier, Regina extracts) with composers who were either contemporaries Daniel, Louise Watts, Jonathan Alley and Adam Player. or had some sort of link with Wagner. The programmes Some photos of the singers posing with members at the will be presented by Gwynn Roberts. after-recital function have been posted on the Society’s website. For the most part the programmes are centred on one of Wagner’s operas, but the final four, dedicated to The Future Functions Ring of the Nibelungen, are based on four grand themes (1) July – Peter Bassett which feature in the Ring. The current schedule is on page On Sunday 20 July, Peter Bassett will give talk on Albert ?? In addition, Barbara Brady has written an article about Lortzing’s comic opera Hans Sachs, as inspiration for the series for Fine Music, the 2MBS program guide. This Wagner’s Die Meistersinger. article was first published in the July 2008 issue of “Fine Music”, the magazine of 2MBS-FM, and is reproduced Sunday 20 July is the last day of the papal visit and the with kind permission of the editor and publishers. Catholic Church’s week-long “World Youth Day”, and at least a quarter of a million pilgrims are expected down the Our Society is proud to sponsor these programs, and I’d like road at the Randwick Race Course and at other venues. to congratulate 2MBS-FM for its decision to commission The event involves a number of road closures and has the this series, and to congratulate Barbara Brady for her potential to cause considerable delays to people making work in compiling it. We’ve indicate to the management their way to the Goethe-Institut, so you should make sure of 2MBS our willingness to sponsor further programs, you allow more time than usual to get there. and raised the question of how this station proposes to commemorate in 2013 the 200th anniversaries of births Sunday 20 July is also Peter Bassett’s birthday, and after his talk he will be the guest of the Society at the Simone of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. We’ll keep you Young concert featuring Englebert Humperdinck’s four- informed on developments. hand piano arrangement of Parsifal, which starts at 5pm Dr Christine Rothauser in the Utzon Room at the Opera House. Here’s hoping that the relatively short journey from Edgecliff to the Dr Christine Rothauser has sent us a report from the Opera House can progress despite the pilgrims. International Wagner Congress held in Geneva in May this year. The Congress (or to use its correct title, the After the concert we will take Peter to dinner for his “Richard Wagner Verband International e.V.”) is the birthday in the vicinity of Circular Quay, and we would over-arching body representing some 136 national and be delighted if any members who are also going to the regional Wagner Societies with around 37,000 members. Simone Young concert could join us. Please phone me if Christine writes: you’re interested in attending Peter’s birthday dinner. “This year the congress has at last turned a new page in (2) September 14 – Dr Robert Gibson its long history. The International Association was created On Sunday 14 September at the Paddington Uniting in 1994 and while it has grown over the years, none of Church, Dr Robert Gibson will give a talk on relationships its International members had the right to vote on any of between the music of the two Richards, Wagner and the issues. It meant that the board of management was Strauss. Hans von Bülow apparently called them “Richard elected without our consent and we were powerless to the First” and “Richard the Third”, for the obvious change the constitution. reason that no-one was worthy of being placed in such “This year the German associations that held all the power, proximity to the Meister as a “Richard the Second”. This were faced with a protest and after the two speeches meeting is being held at the Paddington Uniting Church because the Goethe-Institut is staging a major exhibition delivered by Dr Christine Rothauser and Dr Oster from in August-September and is not available for other uses Strasbourg, a motion was voted unanimously to amend on this date. the constitution, to give to the International Associations the right to vote and hopefully have only one accounting (3) September 28 – Christopher Broderick system for the two associations. On Sunday 28 September at the Goethe-Institut, “Prof Eva Märston from Hannover has replaced Josef Christopher Broderick, President of the Wagner Society Lienhart as president. An International Commission has of New Zealand, will give an illustrated talk on “Wagner been elected, consisting of three members whose task is and the Visual Arts”. Chris took over the President’s role to amend the constitution. Their president is Frau Ingrid when Professor Heath Lees stood down in May this year. Budde representing Germany, Dr Christine Rothauser from In early July this year, Chris will visit Wagner Societies Adelaide and Dr Fotis Papathanassiou from Athens.” in Victoria, South and West Australia, and will visit Queensland after his talk in Sydney. Dr Rothauser is a formidable champion of those issues in which she passionately believes, and

Page 4 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. we congratulate her in opening up the Verband to a The Neidhardt Ring more international voice, and in being recognised by her Hopes that Elke Neidhardt’s incredible Ring production peers in this way. from Adelaide in 2004 would be revived in 2011 have 2008 Bayreuth Scholar suffered a serious set-back, with news that the new federal government will not join a partnership with the Alison Cole, the General Manager of Opera Foundation South Australian state government to provide the $15 Australia, has advised that the winner of the 2008 million required. Bayreuth Scholarship is Cameron MacKenzie. Apart from the fact that Cameron’s application was rather well- The ABC carried a news item on 11 April 2008, saying endowed with good references, we don’t know much that “A former arts minister says the South Australian about him at this stage, because Opera Foundation’s web- Government has not pushed hard enough to win funding site hasn’t been updated with the new scholar’s details. to again stage Wagner’s Ring Cycle in SA. …. As a member Instead, Google has revealed a number of Cameron of the former Liberal state government, Diana Laidlaw MacKenzies in Melbourne, one of whom is a young man was behind the push to bring the opera to Adelaide in with a passingly-flattering photo, who trained in voice at 1998 and 2004. “We have excelled with the Ring Cycle the Victorian College of the Arts as a counter-tenor and and made a name for ourselves,” she said. “I think the may now be the Artistic Director for the Lyric Opera of State Government has been slack in not pressing the Melbourne. I’ll try to make contact with the real Cameron former federal government and the current Government through Opera Foundation when I’m in Melbourne for to be partners with the state in a further performance of the concert performances of Der fliegende Holländer at the Ring Cycle.” The head of the State Opera Company, the end of August, and see whether he would be able to Stephen Phillips, says it would be unprecedented for give a talk to our Society next year, if he’s in Sydney at private donors to fund the performance. “The Los some stage. Angeles Opera is doing a new production of the Ring in a couple of years’ time and a private donor did put in Live and delayed opera broadcast from Bayreuth US$6 million towards that project, but it’s a very different First it was the Chauvel Cinema in Paddington (and other culture in the United States,” he said.” cities outside Sydney), broadcasting delayed telecasts When the South Australian state government announced of live performances from the New York Metropolitan in the middle of last year that it would put up half of the Opera, including one of the Met’s ill-fated attempts to required funding if the federal government matched it, bring Deborah Voigt and Ben Heppner together. Then many saw this as a half-hearted gesture by the South the Greater Union Cinema in Bondi Junction began Australian state government, which could then blame showing delayed opera telecasts from La Scala, Milan, the its federal companions when the project failed, and which will include on 30 and 31 August and 3 September this view seems to have been proven correct. a performance of Patrice Chereau’s production of Tristan A different spin on this news came from Black Sheep und Isolde with Ian Storey and Waltraud Meier, conducted Advertising. On it’s website, under the heading “We’ve by Daniel Barenboim. Now Hoyts is broadcasting four swapped a dragon for a panda” the writer noted that performances from the current San Francisco Opera the two Chinese pandas promised for Adelaide Zoo had season. not fallen victim to the Rudd razor gang’s budget cuts. As the phenomenon has spread, opera-lovers have coaxed Federal funding will be given to the Zoo, so that it can theatre managers in smaller cities and centres to show build a special panda enclosure ($5 million) and then rent these broadcasts. One of our members, Heinz Ebert, was the animals for 10 years from the Chinese government at successful in persuading his local cinema in Gosford to a cost of $10 million. show the delayed telecasts from the New York Met. The day before this $15 million largesse was announced, But in what we believe is a first, Bayreuth is offering a the writer tells us, the Federal Government’s Minister for direct live high definition broadcast via the Internet of the the Arts, Peter Garrett, had announced that funding for opening performance at this year’s Bayreuth festival of the planned Adelaide Ring revival in 2011 had been cut. ’s production of Die Meistersinger on The writer concludes “Now Wagner’s dragon will be July 27 2008 at 4pm (German) time. The cost is 49 Euro, seen no more in Adelaide. In its place will sit two fuzzy, which will entitle you to watch it live and to watch it a lazy quadrupeds with little or no magic about them. second time before 2 August, all in the comfort of your Apparently there are about 250 Pandas in zoos around own home. The link is http://live.bayreuther-festspiele. the world. There are only a small handful of cities that de/live.html where everything you need to know is clearly staged ‘The Ring’. Mr Rudd, I don’t think it was our explained (in English.) wishes you were pandering to. And, once again, South Last year’s premier performances of this production were Australia loses another international attraction. I guess not greeted with universal enthusiasm, so this is a brave we’ll just have to bear it.” move, and hopefully signals the start of live telecasts from Along with the dreadful puns. What more is there to say. Bayreuth and from other festivals and opera houses. Now all that remains is the quiet fire-sale of the props and costumes, and the magic of 2004 will be gone forever. Roger Cruickshank 6 July 2008

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New Members Wagner on The following people joined the Society: 2MBS-FM 102.5 Joseph Kelleher [0965], Kay Abrahams [0966], Richard Bloor [0967], Ingrid and David Price [0968], 2MBS-FM 102.5 will broadcast a series of 12 Damien Pignolet [0969], and Robin and Ron White programs compiled by Society Member Barbara Brady [0970]. entitled “Wagner and Friends”. The first program, Early Wagner, was broadcast on 1 July from 2.30- 4.00 pm. Each program will share selections from Richard Wagner’s music (mainly opera with some Donations symphonic and choral) with composers who were either contemporaries or had some sort of link with The Society welcomes all donations and they can be Wagner. The programs will be presented by Gwynn addressed to the Treasurer, Wagner Society in NSW Inc, Roberts. The programs are scheduled for broadcast at the Society’s GPO Box address shown on the back page on the first and third Tuesday of each month from of this Newsletter. Such donations help us to carry out 2.30-4.00 pm: our objective “to promote the music of Richard Wagner and to encourage a wider appreciation of the significance (Program1) July 1: Early Wagner of his achievements”. Donations are tax-deductible and (Program 2) 15 July - Rienzi and Das Liebesverbot receipts will be issued. Donations up to Monday 30 June (Program 3) 05 August - Der fliegende Holländer were gratefully received from the following members and (Program 4) 19 August - Tannhäuser supporters: Donations processed were received from: (Program 5) 02 September - Lohengrin Carole Bailey, Julian Block, Nance Grant, Sir Nicholas and (Program 6) 16 September - Tristan und Isolde Lady Shehadie, Moya Crane, Ann Weeden, Walter Norris, Terence Watson, Barbara and Nicholas Dorsch, Leona (Program 7) 07 October - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Geeves, Hannah and Willi Spiller, Brian Ducker, William (Program 8) 21 October - Parsifal Felbel, Joan and Maxwell Connery, Gillian and Kenneth (Program 9) 04 November - Nature in the Ring (Tim) McDonald, MaryAnne and Nick Gillott, Margaret (Program 10) 18 November - Power and Magic in the Ring and Clare Hennessy, David and Sabina Full, Mary and (Program 11) 02 December - Love in the Ring Graeme Fogelberg, Patricia and Roy Hodson, Judy and (Program 12) 16 December - Birth, Death and Redemption Joseph Ferfoglia, Stephen Freiberg and Donald Campbell, in the Ring. Barbara McNulty, and Terence Watson.

According to the website of Deutsche-Welle World, Bayreuth Festival to be [Wolfgang] Wagner’s spokesman Peter Emmerich, confirmed that the director-for-life had this week Handed Over to Two submitted a letter expressing his intention to retire to the board of the Bayreuth Festival. Emmerich also said that Wagner could now imagine a co-directorship involving Wagner Daughters both daughters. Previously, he had categorically rejected appointing Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 63, his daughter The narrative twists and turns of the Bayreuth succession with his first wife.” Also according to Deutsche-Welle, never ceases to surprise – an apt image for the festival “Emmerich said the two have become closer since founded by one of the greatest dramatic imaginations Katharina’s mother Gudrun Wagner passed away last of Western culture. fall.” The latest development balances on the hitherto The UK Telegraph has filled in a few more details, impossible-seeming alliance of the two half-sisters – the including the information that “after Bayreuth’s well-established Eva Wagner-Pasquier and the recently financial backers were reported to have threatened to Bayreuth-blooded Katharina Wagner after Wolfgang cut funding because of uncertainty over the festival’s Wagner finally announced his formal retirement: “I hereby leadership, Mr Wagner has agreed to step down as declare that I will abdicate the position of director for director. He has demanded a rapprochement between the Festival by Aug. 31”, he wrote to the festival’s board his two daughters that would lead to them taking the of directors. In a comment reported in the International helm at Bayreuth together, sidelining Nike Wagner, his Herald Tribune, “Bayreuth’s mayor, Michael Hohl, who niece.” also sits on the board, said that the position of festival director would be posted for the next four months. He According to The Guardian, this announcement noted, however, that descendants of Richard Wagner “provoked Nike, who has radical ideas about the would be given priority for the position.” festival, to counter that she and Eva would

Page 6 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. be the better team. An online poll in the newspaper Die Welt suggests the German public agrees with her.” So LOVE/DEATH: there is only to be a duumvirate, not a triumvirate at Wagner? Well, perhaps not, since Katharina has made The Tristan Project by Bill it clear that, according to an article in The Guardian: “Ms Wagner said she had told her father of her plans to team up with Mr Thielemann.” One assumes that Eva Viola – Katie French is agreeable? For those for whom Tristan and Isolde represents The Guardian notes that Thielemann, who conducted Wagner’s masterpiece, the recent showing of segments The Ring this year at Bayreuth, said he would like to of American video artist Bill Viola’s Tristan Project were an lure conductors to the festival who had previously shied aesthetic treat not to be missed. away from it or not been invited, such as Simon Rattle, Originally created in 2005 in collaboration with Peter Zubin Mehta and Kent Nagano, but that the music on Sellars (of Adelaide Festival notoriety), The Tristan Project offer would remain strictly Wagner.” as a whole, was conceived as a four hour backdrop to The article in The Guardian ends with a strange insight Sellar’s production of Tristan and Isolde. Only three from Katharina Wagner into her perspective on history short extracts have been shown here, each of about and the Festspiele’s role in it. On one hand she makes ten minutes in length – The Fall Into Paradise at the what seems to be a fair comparison (levels of talent and Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Fire Woman and success yet to be determined): “She was quoted as telling Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a the paper that the daughters’ reconciliation triggered Waterfall) against a huge screen on the altar wall of the memories of the elder Wagner’s own cooperation with wonderfully atmospheric, medieval-inspired St Saviour’s his brother, Wieland, in the 1950s, when they started Church in Redfern. the festival again in the wake of World War II. Wieland Each of these works powerfully combines light and died of cancer in 1966, leaving Wolfgang to lead on his darkness, silence and sound, endless stillness and own.” (Maybe Eva needs to have regular health checks sometimes shocking movement, in a suspense-filled, to ensure she lasts a reasonable time, before forfeiting erotically charged, bold embodiment of the moods of the field to Katharina.) several dramatic segments of Wagner’s opera. The Guardian then notes that: “Bayreuth’s post-war The perversely entitled The Fall Into Paradise commences directors have all faced the hard task of trying to distance with a tiny speck of light emerging with agonizing slowness the festival from its connections with the Nazi era, from a pitch-black environment. Ever so slowly, so that when it was a favourite haunt of the Third Reich elite. the audience becomes vitally aware of the portentous “Despite this Ms Wagner has welcomed comparisons significance of the concepts of Time – of timelessness, of between her and Mr Thielemann’s partnership and that change and changelessness over time, of being outside of Winifred Wagner, the English-born wife of Siegfried time – the speck expands and evolves into a male and Wagner who was a passionate Hitler supporter and female form, filmed from above. They revolve slowly, friend, and conductor Heinz Tietjen, who jointly took encircling each other until, with shocking, passionate over the festival leadership in 1930” force and an explosion of water, they are conjoined It seems that the sisters have to come up with a plan and propelled downward – or, disorientingly, it could be to meet a 29 April deadline set by the Foundation. No upward! – into a sea-blue paradise, a sapphire other- further information seems to have made its way on to world of bubbles, of merging, interwoven, enthralled the Web on whether a plan has been submitted or a limbs and hair, and waves of fabric, all silhouetted decision made by Foundation. Maybe at the opening against the light. The enraptured pair, oblivious within or conclusion of this year’s Festspiele – stay tuned for their roaring bubble chamber, are out of this world. They further chapters! (You may wish to read more on the are suspended, drowning in timelessness, in the shared saga at the following websites.) rapture of Wagner’s ‘fatal pair’. [Editor] Fire Woman engulfs viewers seated in the unnervingly http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3262049,00.html darkened pews of St Saviour’s in a ceiling-high wall of thundering, soaring flames. In stark silhouette, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ an immobile figure, robed and cowled, confronts a news/2008/04/14/wbayreuth114.xml relentless, blazing inferno for what seems like an eternity http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2008/04/14/wagner- of waiting. Then with the same shocking suddenness bayreuth-heirs.html of the lovers’ plunge into Paradise, she raises her arms http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/24/germany. to form a silhouetted human crucifix. It is an appalling, classicalmusic hair-raising moment as it seems certain she will plunge into the hypnotic flames, but she defies expectations http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/29/europe/bayreuth.php by catapulting backward into an unseen mass of water, propelling waves of petrol blue into the ferocious orange flames. The viewer endures the relentless intensity of the flames, the same ‘ravaging, fiery torment which

Page 7 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. consumes’ Tristan, that same shocking, roaring fire of as an offering, achieving his own liberation from the ‘day’s wild passion’. Tristan’s own words from the opera world, his yearned for annihilation. become all the more poignant as he deliriously cries: ‘Ah Here he is the Tristan of Isolde’s Liebestod, ‘soaring on Isolde, when ah when will you quench the flame/ that it high, stars sparkling around him,’ his heart proudly may announce me to my happiness.’ swelling, in a time outside Time, in the oblivion of The third extract, Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a supreme bliss. Mountain Under a Waterfall) opens subtly, with a sense These extracts from LOVE/DEATH: The Tristan Project are of quiet and peace - Tristan’s yearned for ‘peace of death’. three powerful and evocative contemporary works of art. Tristan’s body lies on a grey granite slab in a winding They combine the seductive power of those elemental sheet of white silk. The only sounds are the interminable forces of fire, of water and earthliness with the elemental dripping of water from the heights above the corpse. But power and destructive forces of passionate love. Viewers the relief is temporary. are engulfed by these powers, suspended outside time Inevitably over extended time, the drips develop into for the length of the piece – then liberated back into real- a trickle, into a torrent, into a raging deluge, swelling world time, exhausted. and roaring to an almost unbearable intensity. With the For those who feel inspired to see more of Viola’s work, surging, submerging swell, the body appears to levitate, his web site is: www.billviola.com not on a horizontal plane, but from the chest with the neck laid bare, as though Tristan were releasing himself

devotion they readily gave, and a handful of affairs Wagner and Friends and liaisons is documented. In the case of Mathilde Wesendonck there is no doubt of Wagner’s infatuation - Barbara Brady while he was writing Tristan und Isolde and calling her his “muse”. And yet the unbearable, unresolved yearning No, that is not an oxymoron! Richard Wagner had portrayed in music of unmatched beauty may never numerous friends who recognized his genius and have been possible had Wagner’s love for Mathilde been admired and supported him - and many of them were satisfied on the simplest level. Certainly Wagner tried steadfast throughout his lifetime, regardless of his habit patiently to explain to his wife, Minna, that his relations of seducing their wallets and wives. Those friends who with Mathilde were purely ideal. This brings us to the fell by the wayside were the ones who declined on quaint vignette of Wagner reading the newly-completed grounds that Wagner could never understand, to pledge poem (as he called his librettos) of Tristan to an intimate yet further funds. Not all of Wagner’s penury in his early group comprising his wife Minna, the object of his love career was his own fault. Performance copyright law was Mathilde Wesendonck, his future wife Cosima, and their rudimentary in Germany before 1870 so opera composers respective husbands. A veritable ménage à six. were paid only for the first performance of a run whereas the singers were paid for each performance. The lack Wagner had a passion for reading the poems of each of copyright protection also meant that music could be of his operas aloud to his friends before going ahead pirated, bringing profit to the publisher but none to the with the music, and was so good at it that one story composer. This made it difficult for emerging composers relates how someone actually felt a bit deflated at the to make a living unless they had other means of support. performance of the opera Parsifal after first having been In Wagner’s case those means were massive loans, so affected by Wagner’s magnificent reading of the sometimes set against rights to future operas. text. It would be another thing to be one of the group listening to a reading of the entire Ring in one sitting. Whether the demands he made on his friends served to Soon after finishing the poem of the Ring at the end of keep him out of debtors’ prison or to sustain a luxurious 1852, Wagner decided to visit his friends the Willes and lifestyle, they were foremost the means to furthering his read it to the company there. He began one evening with work, his art. Wagner’s attitude was that lenders were Das Rheingold, continued with Die Walküre until after quite consciously devoting their money to the artist and midnight, carried on with Siegfried the next morning and his cause. Nothing must stand in his way; he is accused of finished off with Götterdämmerung at night. The Wagner arrogance, self-centredness, megalomania; but the point expert, Ernest Newman, adds that the “ladies ventured is made that had it not been for his driving egotism he may no comment; Wagner attributing their silence to their never have found the strength and resilience to realize his having been deeply moved.” artistic ambitions. The creative pursuit of The Ring of the Nibelung over twenty six years must have required super- This brief foray into Wagner the man and his personal human perseverance and self-belief. friends is in fact a diversion. The real purpose of this piece is to introduce a new fortnightly series of programmes, Just as Wagner needed financial patronage, he needed to going to air on 2MBS-FM from (...time and date...) under be approved of and believed in as an artist, and to be loved the title of Wagner and Friends. The word “friends” is as a person. His charisma was evidently extraordinary; he simply a convenient catch-all for Wagner’s was more fond of women than men for the sympathetic contemporaries, or for composers who

Page 8 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. were earlier and later and spun a thread to and from him. Each programme therefore will include works by composers ranging in time from Beethoven to Richard A Feast of Wagner Around Strauss, and genres from Singspiel to grand opera, with some symphonic, choral and instrumental music along Australia in 2008 the way... As for Wagner, what can the listener expect from this – Featuring Australian Wagnerian series? Perhaps it would be reassuring to know what not to expect: There is no sign of the Norns, all the long Soprano Lisa Gasteen narrations have been sacrificed, and this will not be an illustrated lecture series on the development of Wagner’s 28, 29 November musical style. Instead it is an opportunity to explore a The Queensland Orchestra diversity of Wagner’s music: the best- known pieces for Muhai Tang, cond. a start, but also some surprises such as a sweet cavatina Cyprien Katsaris, piano here, or a jolly, blokey song, there and a deliberately light touch when it comes to a problematic music drama such Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, as Parsifal; here, for instance, we skip the long prelude Prelude Act I and jump straight into a seductive waltz with the Flower Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 3 Maidens. But of course there is much more: symphonic Liszt: Mephisto Waltz passages surging up under lyrical melodies, soaring voices, R. Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra shimmering strings, and some longer scenes where the listener is enticed into the powerful emotion of the music ADELAIDE and the drama. 9 August The format is chronological up to the eighth programme, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra saving the great masterpiece, The Ring of the Nibelung Arvo Volmer, cond. for the final four. Rather than taking one music-drama Lisa Gasteen at a time, we have approached the broad themes that are central to the Ring - Nature, Power and Magic, Love Wagner: Tannhäuser “Dich, teure Halle…” and, finally, Birth, Death and Redemption. No prize for Lohengrin, Preludes to Act I and Act guessing that the last moments of the series will be the 3, and Elsa’s Dream glorious finale to Götterdämmerung. Tristan und Isolde, Prelude and If you are wondering how to make sense of the Ring, with Liebestod its dwarves, gods, demi-gods, dragons and mortals, there R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier Suite are two answers. First the music links the diverse characters, Salomé, closing scene. events and places; it was Wagner’s genius which devised MELBOURNE the network of musical moments (Lietmotive) to bring cohesion to the whole. Secondly, please do go and see a 25, 28, 30 August Ring cycle. I wouldn’t hold my breath for a production in Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Australia (though the stunning 2004 State Opera of South Australia Ring could just possibly be revived in 2012) but Oleg Caetani, cond. there are several European, American and even Asian Bjarni Kristinsson cities which pride themselves on their Rings. You will find Lisa Gasteen dates and venues for future Wagner operas around the Stuart Skelton world up to 2013 on the Wagner Society’s website which John Wegner can be accessed direct at http://wagner-nsw.org.au or by Sian Pendry following the links from the 2MBS website. Adrian Dwyer Finally a warning! Beware of Wagner’s “ear-worms”, Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer fragments of music that burrow their way into the brain 23, 24 November uninvited and repeat themselves incessantly for days on end. For my part, having been embedded with Wagner’s Melbourne Symphony Orchestra music for a considerable time while compiling these Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. programmes, I am hopelessly infected. I can only appeal to Herr Wagner for release. In the words of Brünnhilde: Wagner: Tannhäuser: Overture and “Ruhe! Ruhe! Du Gott”. Venusberg Music [Don’t forget, international and interstate Members and Dvorak: Serenade for Strings in E major, Op.22 readers, that you can also listen to the broadcasts on Delius: The Walk to the Paradise Garden 2MBS-FM on the Internet at http://www.2mbs.com.au. Elgar: ‘Enigma’ Variations, Op.36 Editor]

Page 9 Wagner Society in NSW Inc.

of your Committee who worked so hard on your behalf President’s Report for throughout 2007 - our Vice President, Julian Block, our Honorary Secretary, Alan Whelan, our Honorary Treasurer, Michael Moore, and our committee members Gaby the Society’s 27th Year Bremner-Moore, Terence Watson and Dennis Mather. From 1 January to 31 December 2007, delivered to I’d particularly like to give Terence Watson, our Newsletter the Annual General Meeting on 18 May 2008 editor, special thanks. I regularly receive favourable comments about the high standard of our Newsletter Dear Members from members, and from Societies within Australia and overseas, and I’d like to commend Terence for his hard I am pleased to present the President’s Report for the work on our behalf. 27th year of the Wagner Society in New South Wales Incorporated. Our thanks are due to Renata and Herman Junkers who give so generously of their time to provide the afternoon Functions teas at our functions; to John Studdert our web-master, The Society’s 2007 functions held in the Goethe-Institut whose work on the web-site is also the subject of praise included: from other Societies; to our faithful Ravens, Camron Dyer and Richard Mason; and to Alasdair Beck, our Public • In February, Terence Watson led a discussion group Officer. I’d also like to thank those members who come of members who had attended to Toronto and Costa early to our functions and lend a hand with the food or Mesa Ring Cycles in 2006, which was followed by a the name tags. talk by Terence on “the ‘Problem’ of Siegfried”; Finally • In March, Robert Gay spoke about Wagner’s debt to the model of French Grand Opera; And finally I would like to thank you, our members, whose • In April, Nigel Butterley gave his second talk on commitment to the Society and support for our functions, music and the Faust legend, entitled “Faust and the including this AGM, ensures that we can continue to Feminine”; provide scholarships and assistance for young artists, including the Bayreuth Scholar, and to further the aims of • In May, we held our AGM; our Society. Your continuing interest and encouragement • In July, I gave a talk on “Wolfram”; is the reason we are here today. Thank you all. • In September, Professor Heath Lees from the New Roger Cruickshank, President Zealand Society spoke on “Wagner and Mallarme”; • In October, members who had attended the Bayreuth Festival spoke about their experiences, and about Katharina Wagner’s new production of “Die Barrie Kosky Named Meistersinger”; • In November, Antony Ernst gave a talk on “Tristan and Director of One of Isolde” in this Church; and • In December, we held our end-of-year party. Germany’s Leading Opera Prior to some of the meetings, we showed excerpts of DVDs including the film on Wagner’s life by Tony Palmer. Houses - Komische Oper. Finances News reports tell us that Kosky has been appointed as artistic director of the city’s Komische Oper from 2012. Following the resolution passed at the 2007 AGM, the Kosky has produced a number of operas and popular 2007 accounts will be audited. I’d like to thank Julie musicals in the house already, including Mozart’s The Carroll, who arranged with the firm of Walter Turnbull Marriage of Figaro and the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me for this to be completed “pro bono”. Kate. Kosky is reported as saying: “To be able to create Thanks a vision for an opera house in the 21st century is an extreme and wonderful challenge, and one that after We continue our good relations with the German 20 years of working in the theatre, I am ready for. I want Consulate, the Consul General, and with the Goethe- to build on the great artistic tradition of the house, as Institut, and we thank the Institut’s Director, Klaus well as developing and expanding what the definitions Krischok, and its officers and staff for their continued of music theatre are.” Apparently, the Komische Oper help and support. We are also continue to provide was named Opera House of the Year by German critics financial assistance each year to the Bayreuth Scholar, last year. The Komische Oper employs 420 people and who is selected by Opera Foundation Australia and in has an annual budget of E34 million ($55.3 million). 2007 was Warwick Fyfe, a member of the Society, and Berlin audiences may know what to expect of Kosky, are very please to be able to support students from the but Kosky said the Komische Oper job would allow him University of Sydney Conservatorium of Music by way of infinite possibilities. “Expect the unexpected,” he said. German Language scholarships at the Goethe-Institut. There are many people in the Society I wish to thank, and foremost among them special thanks go to the members

Page 10 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. Bayreuth Scholarship Review of the Report 2007 Metropolitan Opera - Warwick Fyfe

Tristan und Isolde Brief Summary of Study Tour Activities on 28 March 2008 Coachings: Christopher Squires, Donald Wages Lessons: Deborah Polaski – Richard Mason Meetings / Encounters: Martin Cooke, Siro Battaglin, Simon Hewitt, Deborah Humble, Josef Hussek, Paul The drama started before curtain-up, as a manager Kildea, Bettina Kok, Jhrgen May, Toni Post, Alex Soddy, came out on stage to be greeted by groans from Simone Young the audience. Were Ben Heppner and Deborah Opera Performances: Tales of Hoffman, Rienzi, Tristan Voigt doomed never to unite in song? This cursed und Isolde run of six performances had already suffered from Opera Rehearsals: Rosenkavalier, Turco in Italia, Ben Heppner cancelling the first four, and Deborah Elektra Voigt struggling with three different Tristans, falling ill during Act II of the fourth performance and Backstage visits: Hamburg Staatsoper, Bavarian State Opera, Cologne Opera then cancelling the fifth. However, the manager announced that it was “only good news” as [And then there were a host of art gallery and museum Margaret Jane Wray was ill and to be replaced by visits as well!] Michelle deYoung. Warwick’s first working day in Hamburg was very busy, Deborah Voigt was very dramatic and colourful but ended with a fortuitous meeting at dinner: “Resolved in Act I, in the first part of Act II her voice was to make good on my promise to myself to indulge in some rather tight, improved for the softer tones of echt German food (which I adore) while here, I made my “O sink herneider”, and produced a superb rich way determinedly, come dinner time, to a restaurant near soaring colour for the Act III close. Ben Heppner the hotel, which had been recommended to me. Superb was astonishing, producing a true heldentenor Schweinhaxe served by waitresses in traditional dress. sound, absolutely firm with ringing high notes on Could there be a finer or more luscious image of pure full voice throughout. The love duet was sung in bliss? I doubt it. Having demolished my very own pig, I full, without the usual large cut made for Tristan’s was paying the bill when I realized that Simone Young benefit. Amazingly, he still had enough voice for an was sitting at the table behind mine.” To find out what anguished Act III, where the vocal stamina added happened next, you can read Warwick’s account on the Wagner Society’s website – www.wagner-nsw.org.au. to the dramatic tension. Certainly the greatest Tristan I have seen, including Vickers, probably the Members may remember a talk by Antony Ernst in best since Melchior. Both Voigt and Heppner had preparation for the Adelaide Ring Cycle in which he spent finely detailed interpretations. some time discussing the concept of “Fach”. Warwick encountered this very early in his first auditions at the Michelle DeYoung produced a rich colour for a Hamburg Opera House: I may not be a Heldentenor, sympathetic Brangäne, Eike Wilm Schulte played but the question remains: What is my Fach? This is an a bluff and warm Kurwenal, whilst Matti Salminen especially pertinent question in Germany because of the brought anguish and deep distress to the role dominance of the Fach system.” If you would like to find of King Marke. James Levine underplayed the out more, go to our website. more dramatic moments in the score to instead concentrate on producing a careful and sweeping Warwick was fortunate to watch a “stage orchestral build-up of sound that became increasingly rehearsal of Der Rosenkavalier conducted by Simone intense. The opera has probably never been so Young. The moment I entered the auditorium (my carefully long nor appeared so short. The production was secured pass was totally superfluous *(anyone could have partly traditional, partly abstract, partly Japanese, wandered in), I immediately sensed that vibration in the partly Eurotrash and partly naff. The Met audience air which bespeaks the specific tension endemic to opera gave a 20 minute standing ovation at the end (at rehearsals where the stakes are high and Brobdignagian 12.15!) of this magnificent performance, which personalities abound, lumbering around and crashing was still ringing in the ears over a week later. into each other.” Warwick continues describing this experience in his characteristically understated, slightly ironic way, with a refreshing candour about his reactions to this and the many other highlights of his working tour. Among his operatic experiences, Warwick introduces

Page 11 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. us to his clearly extensive knowledge and love of art Warwick sums his experience in part by observing: “I through his many visits to galleries and museums that he think the single most important legacy of this trip is my squeezed in with almost indefatigable delight. professional relationship with Deborah Polaski. What we did felt like just the beginning, and there was a real Warwick was also able to meet for some coaching will to see things continue into the indefinite future. I sessions with the Wagnerian soprano Deborah Polaski, believe that with her support, guidance and wisdom, who, Members may remember was interviewed by I can achieve things otherwise beyond me.” Again, I the Australia soprano, Lisa Harper-Brown, at a Society would encourage all Members to read the full report. If meeting. Warwick’s encounter (you have to read the you do not have access to the Internet, you may be able full, self-deprecating account on line to enjoy Warwick’s to prevail on the President to give you a copy to enjoy in humour) coincided with a “call to say that the folk in the traditional way. Cologne were interested in hearing me with regard to the Editor. role of Telramund”. Warwick sums up: “This was one of the most exciting experiences of my professional life.” In the course of recounting his experiences in Leipzig “Young Set to Become watching a production of Rienzi, Warwick makes a number of comments about the nature of Wagner’s Keeper of the Ring in music and his development as an artist (and his own from a brass player to Wagner singer) that are fresh and Hamburg” illuminating and make for further interesting reading. For example: “Later in his career, Wagner (who of course In his 3 April 2008 article with this title – originally in The revolutionized harmony) was on record as being very Sunday Times and reproduced in The Australian - Hugh proud of his transitions. Well, at the time of writing Rienzi, Canning commented on his viewing of the first stage of he was certainly not yet the master of the art of musical Hamburg State Opera’s Ring Cycle under Simone Young transition. He seemed to find fluency in this area (to my that has begun “with unprecedented backing from the ear) abruptly with Dutchman, after years of hamfistedness. marketing department of the city government, which It was like a lattice of clumsiness was holding his genius clearly sees the Hamburg Ring, to be given cyclically in down, which could only break through in spurts during 2011, 2012 and 2013, as an important magnet for visitors the time in which he was laboriously learning his craft, from Germany and abroad.” Such a sad comparison with until, with Dutchman, this impeding superstructure gave Australia where we have the enlightened approach of the way and the sublime mature music erupted forth with its South Australian State and the Federal Governments that ideal proportions and expertly judged, inevitable-seeming neither could possibly risk wasting Australian taxpayer transitions. I’ve a good deal of Wagner’s juvenilia on CD, funds on re-mounting one of the great Ring Cycles of and the main thing to be said of it is how astonishingly recent times. bad most of it is compared to the immature works of In another sad parallel with Adelaide versus Sydney/ other great composers. Rienzi is not a terrible work, and Melbourne, Canning notes that “In the years since the so can to that extent be regarded as transitional, but it is collapse of the communist German Democratic Republic, very uneven.” Hamburg has seen its position as the most important Similarly, Warwick’s account of Garmisch-Partenkirchen: German cultural centre after Berlin and Munich superseded Kneeling at the porcelain altar of The Richard Strauss by Dresden and Leipzig. The new Ring is a cultural Institute is both informative and amusing and one highlight of a huge program of urban regeneration. Its cannot help sympathising with the stomach disorder that jewel will be a glittering concert hall, residential and threatened to destroy the day completely, but fortunately hotel complex, the Elbphilharmonie, which will rise, like he was able to engage in an interesting discussion of a crystal crown, on top of the shell of a warehouse at Strauss’s music with the director, Jürgen May who also the heart of Hamburg’s new HafenCity (Harbour City).” gave Warwick a personal tour. Warwick’s account of his Ah, Australia Felix – not! Could one imagine anyone in visit to the Bavarian town of Füssen and, of course Ludwig Australia, any more, imagining an Australian city being II’s castles Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein, is revitalised through a major commitment to the arts? fascinating – I for one never knew that Füssen was a old No! Instead, in NSW we have calls for road races and and famous musical instrument making town. huge scale convention and entertainment facilities. And a major architect’s proposal to give us a proper Opera Warwick was then lucky enough to score a ticket to House under the Botanical Gardens is bagged rather Tristan und Isolde and “despite feeling ill, I was too than provoking a critical discussion about the merits of excited at the prospect of seeing the opera described the proposal and a serious debate on the alternatives. by Birgit Nilsson as the greatest of all, performed where it was premiered back in the days of Ludwig II, for my For those of us who might be able to travel to Hamburg, physical pain to spoil my evening. The lights dimmed and Canning notes that the “Hamburg Ring will be seen I waited with my heart a-flutter for that first minor sixth complete after the opening of the Elbphilharmonie, but interval.” Warwick’s assessment of the performance, the artistic portents are promising. It is always difficult and comparisons with Rienzi, for example, are frank and to judge a Ring from Das Rheingold - the insightful and worth reading in full.

Page 12 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. most action-packed and director-friendly component of Full Frontal Nudity is McNally’s explicit exploration of this the cycle - but Claus Guth’s witty, ironic staging, which Syndrome, but rendered ironically and satirically through opens with nymphet Rhinemaidens in soiled pink nighties the thoughts and words of three American tourists being cavorting on a huge bed, and transports us to a mountain introduced to Michelangelo’s David by a tour guide eyrie where Wotan and his middle-class family plot world named Bimbi and so sensitive that after years of daily domination, bodes well for the production.” I for one, exposure David still takes her breath away. She leads a would love to see Guth’s interpretation of the Ring after widowed, retired English teacher of uncertain sexuality, enjoying his Bayreuth Dutchman. Mr. Charlotte [!]; Leo Sampson, a foul-mouthed macho punk; and Lana Maxwell, a dumb blonde who doesn’t Giving us a further insight into the success of the Hamburg even know there was such a biblical figure. The tourists Rheingold and the future of the rest of the Ring, Canning present a range of emotions and reactions from the punk’s writes that “Young, an experienced Wagnerian, favours penis insecurities through Mr Charlotte’s embarrassment a swift, eventful unfolding of Wagner’s more than two- with nakedness to the genuine Stendhal experience of hour span and lucid orchestral textures. Her Hamburg the guide. ensemble supplies superb Rhinemaidens, imposing giants and a lustrous young Erda (Deborah Humble), and she Prelude and Liebestod, on the other hand, uses two rounds needs only two guests: the authoritative Falk Struckmann of Wagner’s music as the backdrop to a the characters as Wotan and the hugely promising Wolfgang Koch, thoughts: “The piece is set in a concert hall during a one of the rising generation of young Wagnerians, as performance of Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod a formidable, raging Alberich. The later Ring operas from Tristan and Isolde and consists of five interlocking bring Lisa Gasteen as Brünnhilde and Christian Franz monologues -- by the famous gay Conductor (Larry as Siegfried: central casting, perhaps, but with the Eisenberg), his frustrated Wife (Jayne Clement), the tetchy multiplicity of Rings in the offing, casting options are Concertmaster (Klair Bybee), the nervous Soprano (Roberta few.” Your Editor has put this cycle in his diary and only Orlandi), and a Young Man (Matt Ryan) who’s hell-bent needs to save desperately (and be lucky enough to score on seducing the maestro. Eisenberg, as the breathtakingly tickets)! See you there! egocentric Conductor, brilliantly carries the weight of the piece in a long series of soliloquies, which he must deliver while conducting Wagner. It’s a daunting exercise in split Wagner Revisited via the focus, requiring him to maintain his constant connection to the music, while delivering a complex, coruscating series of reminiscences, self-examinations, and a musical Stendhal Syndrome orgasm that ends in a colossal emotional meltdown. Past issues of this Newsletter have carried articles about the impact that Wagner has had on other artists, mainly McNally explained his approach in an interview for the poets and dramatists. This time we look at Terrence 2004 performance: “how art can affect us emotionally, McNally’s play The Stendhal Syndrome. Members may psychological, erotically” – hence the Stendhal Syndrome. be familiar with McNally’s very successful 1995 play McNally also notes that the music was not intended to Masterclass, based on Maria Callas’ masterclasses dominate, but to set the tone and to engage the sensual/ at the Julliard School of Music in New York City. That sensuous response of the audience to this powerful music play also had a very successful season at the Sydney for his own ends – a kind of piggy-backing on Wagner’s Theatre Company with Robyn Nevin giving a powerful work. Later in this interview, McNally tells us: “. It was performance as the Diva. always my intention that the second time he does [the piece, within the play] the music pretty much fades out Around 1995 McNally also wrote a one-act play and he stops conducting and we go into his inner life. The Prelude and Liebestod and then around 2003 wrote a audience, you ask them to accept the conceit that we’re companion piece Full Frontal Nudity as meditations of going into this very intense interior monologue now. But the overwhelming impact art can have on people. This he’s still communicating with his wife and the young man is the so-called Stendhal Syndrome. Wikipedia provides and the concertmaster and the soprano through looks.” this useful description: “Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal’s syndrome or Florence syndrome, is a psychosomatic McNally also elucidated what he saw as the link between illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion the sexually explicit content of his characters’ thoughts and and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed Wagner’s music-drama: “It’s graphic and I think honest to art, usually when the art is particularly ‘beautiful’ or and ultimately moving: a man so lost in an impossible a large amount of art is in a single place. The term can moment for anyone to live in which is that incredible also be used to describe a similar reaction to a surfeit moment of supreme ecstasy which is Liebestod, which of choice in other circumstances, e.g. when confronted happens to Wagnerian characters in love. They become so with immense beauty in the natural world. It is named overwhelmed that they die, literally. It’s very strange and after the famous 19th century French author Stendhal I think that music famously is prolonged foreplay before (pseudonym of Henri-Marie Beyle), who described his orgasm. That chord that’s started in the very beginning experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to of the Prelude does not resolve itself until the last note Florence, Italy in his book Naples and Florence: of the soprano and cadenza in the orchestra. I think it’s A Journey from Milan to Reggio.” pretty clear to me what Wagner was writing about and it

Page 13 Wagner Society in NSW Inc. was shocking in its day. It just seemed the ideal piece of one that follows life.” Another reviewer noted: “Still, as music to write about.” the Conductor leads his orchestra and a young soloist through pieces from ‘’Tristan und Isolde,’’ simultaneously Another review from 1989 gives us a more specific idea conducting an internal monologue to the swirls of of the play and of McNally’s indebtedness to Wagner’s Wagner, Mr. Thomas [the Conductor in this performance] seminal work: “As [the music] begins, quietly and full of makes it clear that this nasty, strutting egomaniac is rising eloquent pauses, the Conductor begins a monologue, to heavenly heights. His intensity rivals the production’s speaking his thoughts aloud. At first they are merely recorded music. Great art, it seems, does not require conventional expressions of self-satisfaction: “I never purity of soul from those who create it or, for that matter, met anyone as interesting as me,” he says. He basks in from those who experience it.” the attention of the hall, of the Wife, of the young Man. McNally’s work also seems to open up a Pandora’s Box As the music grows in complexity and feeling, so too does of ethical and artistic problems of appropriating works the conductor’s soliloquy. It becomes an aria, following of art for one’s own ends. At the worst, we hear and see the moods of the music, peaking and receding, filling great works of art debased in advertising designed to sell with anger, loneliness, sexual hunger, loathing. “What us some dubious product. At the best, such appropriation is transfiguration but an orgasm coupled with a heart can make us see the work or art in a new light and, ideally, attack,” he cries. The other characters also speak their learn to appreciate it more. minds, but they are only single instruments; their voices Sadly there does not seem to have been any local and thoughts join through the conductor in this symphony performances, but perhaps one of our more adventurous of human feeling. [Actor Larry] Bryggman’s solo [as the theatre companies could be encouraged to schedule The Conductor] is a virtuosos piece, by turns elevated and Stendhal Syndrome for 2013, Wagner’s 200th birthday?? vulgar, sublime and profane, summoning and purging pity and fear, combining the little death of sex and the bigger

It Ain’t Over Until the Iguana Sings

On 20 June 2008, under this heading, Chris Henning wrote a very entertaining article on the shenanigans at the Iguana Restaurant on the Central Coast of NSW that occupied far too much press space and media time in the past few weeks. In a lovely pastiche, which shows considerable familiarity with the convoluted political machinations of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Henning drew telling and funny parallels between the politics of Valhalla and of the NSW Labor Party on the Central Coast. The following will give you a taste. Die Slabberdammerung (Twilight of the Slabs) The Slablords, Siegdella and his lady, Belinhilde, are partying at a castle with Central Coast friends, known as the Woymaidens, when the Iguana appears, singing the rollicking drinking song Move, Move. We Need Your Table. Belinhilde, who knows sorcery, tries her most powerful spell in the well-known aria ---- Off, ----head. But her spell goes awry, and she succeeds only in conjuring up the greedy twins Faffen and Fupfa, who covet the Woygold. They join Belinhilde in the tremendous Me ---- Off? ---- Off Yourself, Bitch. As the three battle for supremacy, Siegdella tries to intervene, brandishing his sacred sword Rightwing, and singing the famous aria My Wife Is A Saint. I Have The Numbers To Prove It, but Faffen accuses him of hallucinating in the powerful duet Youse Must Be Off Your Face (I’m Cutting Youse Off)….Belinhilde… sets fire to the restaurant and marches out with the Woymaidens singing the curse song Lizard, Your Redevelopment Plans Are Toast….At its climax, the sword Rightwing shatters, and at that moment the Iguana recognises Siegdella as a true hero, and is filled with remorse. Henning’s article included a synopsis of the action of two more acts. Rather against Wagner’s principles, but perhaps as a sop to the mediapack, Henning couldn’t resist inserting a ballet: “Dance of the F twins (ballet). Faffen and Fupfa leap about in front of TV cameras, mocking Belinhilde and Siegdella obscenely, and brandishing their stat decs”. Unfortunately, the article seems to have disappeared from the Herald’s website. Perhaps Mr Henning could be tempted to expand on the continuing relevance of the political aspects of the Ring Cycle with a talk to the Society? (Apologies to interstate and international readers to whom the above will seem bizarre. I can assure you that the plot of Die Slabberdammerung is no more convoluted or unbelievable than the behaviour of the right wing of the NSW Labor Party when it is having a great night out.) [Editor]

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Application Form for Tickets to the Bayreuth Festival 2009 Through the Wagner Society in NSW Inc.

Holding Deposit $2,500 incl $100 handling fee* $2,500 incl $100 handling fee*

Applicant 1 Applicant 2

Name

Address

Phone (Day)

(Night)

Membership No

Signature/s

Tick the box if you wish to be allocated the less expensive tickets of those allocated to the Society.

*Based on the average cost of last year’s allocation of sets of tickets plus 10% to cover ticket price increases. The Society levies a $100 charge to cover administrative and related costs.

At the AGM on 21 May 2006, Members agreed to change the process for balloting the sets of tickets the Society receive from the Bayreuth Festival Office. Preference will now be given to Members of two or more years standing who have not, within the past five years, received tickets to Bayreuth through the Society. Otherwise, the process for applications for sets of tickets for the Festival in 2007 has not changed, and is: 1. any member of the Society may apply for 1 set of tickets in her or his own name and must forward a cheque for $2,500 with their application form. 2. two members with a shared membership may apply for one set of tickets in each of their names (ie two sets of tickets for the two members) and must forward a cheque for $5,000 with their application form; 3. application forms and cheques must reach the Society (at its GPO Box address) by Sunday, 30 September 2007; 4. in December, the Society expects to receive advice of the number of sets of tickets that have been allocated. If the Society receives all the tickets that were applied for, then a ballot will be held to allocate the seats among the successful applicants as follows: a. Applicants who are members of two or more years standing who have not within the past five years received tickets through the Society will be balloted first; b. other applicants of two or more years standing will be balloted second; and c. the remaining applicants will be balloted last. 5. Cheques from successful applicants will be banked, and each successful applicant notified of their seat numbers (and given a refund or asked for further money as required.). 6. if the Society receives fewer tickets than were applied for, then a ballot will be held to determine which applicants will be successful, and their seat allocation. The same process will be followed as in “4”, except that cheques will be returned to unsuccessful applicants.

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ADDRESS Please note our permanent address for all correspondence The Wagner Society in New South Wales Inc GPO Box 4574 SYDNEY NSW 2001 Telephone: 9357 7631 (Roger Cruickshank, President) Website: http://www.wagner-nsw.org.au Website enquiries: [email protected] (most website addresses used in this Newsletter will be on the Wagner Society’s website in the relevant article)

Address for Sunday Functions Goethe Institut 90 Ocean Street Woollahra (corner of Jersey Road)

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